


Hair of the Dog

by dyingpoet



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Canon Era, Drunkenness, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Race doesn't come home one night and Jack is going to kill him





	Hair of the Dog

**Author's Note:**

> done for a commission for @littlerevolutionary on tumblr!! i hope u like it fam!!!

Davey had left with Les an hour ago. He said something about Jack getting some sleep before climbing down the ladder to the bunk room, and Jack felt sort of bad; he was just trying to help. Everyone had at some point tonight. 

“Stupid fucking idiot, I’m gonna kill him.”

Jack paced to the other end of the roof and back again, probably running a track in the concrete from how long he’d been at it. He looked briefly up at the moon before bringing his hand up to his mouth to bite at his nails again. 

It was probably midnight. Race had snuck out of lodging around six according to Albert, and he still hadn’t gotten back. And Jack knew he wasn’t in Brooklyn; Race never went there on Thursdays because the bulls were out later than usual and they gave him a hell of a lot of trouble trying to cross the bridge back.

He was going to kill him. 

He’d spent the last couple hours racking his brain trying to think of anything that might have set Race off, and came up empty. He ran out of distribution as fast as ever, running off at the mouth at some bet at the track and that was it. And now he was gone and Jack was going to  _ kill him _ . 

The ladder shook abruptly, cutting into Jack’s thoughts and the metal clanked erratically as someone started climbing up, and Jack whipped his head toward it before rushing forward. 

He saw Race’s curls before his face, and grabbed his collar to haul him up before he even got a word out.  _ Almost  _ before he got a word out.

“Where the  _ fuck  _ have you been?”

Race stumbled into Jack, who still hadn’t lessened the grip on his collar, and Jack nearly recoiled at the smell of the alcohol. It smelled like someone had tried to drown him in a bottle of whiskey. 

“Was walkin’ ‘round, lost track’a time,” Race slurred after he steadied himself, looking up at Jack with glazed over eyes. “Al said ya wanted me up here.”

Jack stared at him, he was fucking drunk. Race never got drunk before, he was a kid for god sake. “You’re drunk.”

There wasn’t as much heat in his words as he thought there would be. There couldn’t be, Race could barely hold Jack’s gaze and he looked like he’d been crying. Fuck.

Nodding jerkily, Race sucked in a breath and looked up at the sky, squinting. “Sorry.”

Finally dropping the hold on his collar, Jack put both hands on the younger boys shoulders and leaned down to make eye contact with him. He still wanted to kill him, he just looked  _ wrong  _ right now. 

“Where were you?” Jack asked, snapping his fingers in Race’s face when he started to look off again. “ _ Hey _ , do you know what time it is? What the hell is  _ wrong  _ with you?”

Race looked at Jack and his eyes started to look wet. “Sorry.”

“None of that, where were you? Where did you go?”

Even with Jack talking slow Race took a second before he answered, shuddering a bit before he did. “Bar down the street, I’m sorry.”

He gave a full shudder before falling into Jack’s chest, sobbing.

“Jesus Christ, kid.”

Race was clinging to the back of Jack’s shirt and Jack lowered them both to the ground, getting his back against the wall and trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

He settled for letting Race cry into him, rubbing circles slowly into his back and trying his best to shush him and get him to call down. He wasn’t satan, he couldn’t be angry anymore, not now. 

Once Race started to quiet down, Jack gently pulled him away so his face wasn’t buried in his shoulder anymore. “Hey bud, it’s okay, you’re home now it’s fine.”

Race hiccuped for a second before pulling his eyes up to meet Jack’s. He sniffled for a minute or so, alternating between looking at Jack and the floor before he took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, wiping the back of his hand across his nose, “I didn’t - I didn’t wanna make ya mad, I didn’t know what else to do.”

He looked back at the ground and Jack fought down his growing impatience. He was still drunk, and honestly the anger had faded at this point more into concern, but something was wrong. Race never got this bad by himself. He always sulked in lodging or came to talk to Jack or Albert, and he definitely never ran off like that or  _ drank  _ like that. 

“Didn’t know what to do ‘bout what?” Jack asked gently, reaching out to put a hand on Race’s shoulder and rubbing his thumb into the muscle rhythmically. “Race?”

Race sniffled again and mumbled something.

Jack tilted his head and jostled the younger a little. “Huh?”

“I’m a bad person, Jack.”

At that Jack frowned and leaned down again to get a look at Race. “What?”

“I’m a bad person,” Race said steadily, looking at Jack with the look of someone a lot younger. “I-I ain’t doin’ nothin’ good, am I? I’m just bad.”

“Hey, you shut up, yeah?” Jack snapped, lowering his voice when Race looked down at the ground. Gently he grabbed his chin and pulled his head up so he could look at him. “You ain’t nothin’ but good, what’s the matter with you? You bust your ass everyday just like the rest of us,  _ and  _ take care of the little ones? What’s so bad about that?”

Race shook his head frantically, leaning closer to Jack. “No, it don’t matter, I ain’t worth nothin’ and none of that shit matters. I hate it.”

Jesus Jack wanted to beat the shit out of whoever fucked with Race that day, that was the only reason he’d get so worked up out of the blue. The kid wouldn’t give a name though, he knew him well enough for that, and it honestly wasn’t a problem for right now.

“Racer, look at me.”

Race looked meekly up at Jack, almost shrinking into himself as he did.

“You’se better than pretty much anybody I’ve ever met, okay? You’re my brother kid, and if anythin’ ever happened to ya I - well it’d be over for me, okay?”

Jack waited until Race nodded slightly before pulling him back into his chest, getting a face full of hair and little brother and the smell of whiskey as he did. “And don’t ever pull any of this shit again, I’ll fuckin’ kill ya.”

Race hummed into Jack’s shoulder before pulling back and taking a shaky breath. “I won’t, it don’t feel good anyway.”

“Damn right it doesn’t, and it ain’t ever gonna be any different,” Jack said, a soft smile taking over his face as Race yawned and nearly pitched forward. “Ya wanna sleep up here?”

“Can I?”

Jack snorted, already reaching over to grab his ratty pillow and blanket from where it was tucked into the corner. “‘Course ya can, you’se gonna be needin’ some sleep before tomorrow if ya wanna sell anyway.”

Race didn’t say much else as he and Jack laid down, curling up into Jack’s side and holding onto the blanket like a lifeline.

All Jack could think before he fell asleep was thank god the kid didn’t get sick.

* * *

Jack snagged the back of Race’s collar just as he stumbled out of the gate, and the younger squinted back at him. 

“What?”

“Whaddya mean  _ what _ ?” Jack asked, pulling Race to his side before slinging an arm over his shoulder and pulling him down the street and away from his normal track to the bridge. “Ya think you’se sellin’ in Brooklyn? After yesterday?”

Race started to groan and Jack slapped the back of his head lightly. The kid had woken up at sunrise and moaned until Jack woke up too; it was one hell of a hangover.

“Shut it, I could be makin’ ya hit Central with Buttons and the littles, this is barely a punishment.”

For once in his life, Race bit his tongue, probably more from the effort it was taking him to not throw up than anything else.

Jack took a deep breath and shook Race a little under his arm, ignoring his weak noise of protest. “Yep, gonna be a fun couple’a weeks, lemme tell ya.”

“I’m on the edge of my seat, Jackie.”

There was another yelp, and Jack dragged Race further down the street, already selling his hangover as a the next smallpox. At least some good could come out of all this. 

**Author's Note:**

> im nervous about this!! im sad and i cant tell if that made the angst better or worse??
> 
> but kudos/comments save me :') and hmu on tumblr @dying-poet for more content!!


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